From My Collection Explorer

Recently I was approached by a former customer of the now defunct My Collection Explorer software to see if I could help him recover his data and import it into NM Collector Software. After investigating his situation I determined that I could help him.

This procedure requires that you have a working copy of My Collection Explorer. If you no longer have one, get a working copy of My Collection Explorer. I found mine at: http://www.archive.org/details/tucows_333804_My_Collection_Explorer (tucows is a reputable source but I cannot speak for www.archive.org so make sure you run it past a virus scanner – my copy came out clean). This is a 15 day evaluation version that is enough time to get your data exported. I found that I could only start it in Windows 7 by double clicking on a backup file saved by the program at an earlier date.

Here are step by step instructions with pictures of how to import data from the now defunct My Collection Explorer into NM Collector Software.

NOTE: all misspellings in the My Collection Explorer screen captures are what I found in MY Collection Explorer. Any misspellings in the text or data fields are mine.

1. Since My Collection Explorer does not export column headings with its data I suggest that you create a sample collection with each field name in the data so you can see where the fields are in the spreadsheet. Otherwise you can inspect the data that is exported to determine the title for each column based on the contents.

screen shots of die-cast collectibles in My Collection Explorer

2. Export the catalog with sample data from My Collection Explorer. Take note of the field locations in the resulting spreadsheet. NOTE: You have to pick an actual item in your collection or the export will not work! Even though you select a single item it will export all of your items in your collection and more.

screen shot of exported sample data from My Collection Explorer

The actual spreadsheet has more columns to the right.

3. Export the catalog with real data from My Collection Explorer. Use the sample data export with the field names to decipher the real data that was exported. NOTE: You have to pick an actual item in your collection or the export will not work! Even though you select a single item it will export all of your items in your collection and more.

screen shot of exported real data from My Collection Explorer – If pictures are exported I could not find them. Also, I could not find an exported sale price.

4. Create a collection type in NM Collector that matches a catalog in My Collection Explorer. Please see this Home Inventory Tutorial for how to create a new collection type in NM Collector Software.

NOTE: When you export you select the folder only. You do not provide a file name. The file name is generated automatically based on the collection type.

In this case, the resulting exported file name is JEDie-Cast.csv

Resulting Excel Export – Note that the first row consists of coulumn headings. Since there was no data exported all we see are the column headings. There will be blank columns for fields in the database where no column headings are defined.

6. Convert the exported My Collection Explorer Excel Spreadsheet into the format Expected by NM Collector Software. I found it easiest just to start with my NM Collector Software Column Headings Export (from above) and copy columns from the My Collection Explorer Export spreadsheet and paste them into the appropriate location in my NM Collector Software spreadsheet (from above).

NOTE: Please do not paste the format into the NM Collector Spreadsheet as that will break the import. For example, the purchase price for My Collection Explorer is $ but it has to be plain text or number in the NM Collector Software spreadsheet.

Instructions for copying and pasting cells in Microsoft Excel can be found here. Instructions for other spreadsheet tools can be found in your favorite internet search engine.

After data has been rearranged ensure the first row is blank or column headings because the NM Collector Software Import skips the first row since it expects to see headers not data in the first row.

screen shot of My Collection Explorer data in NM Collector Software format. The actual spreadsheet has more columns to the right.